'Did he summon that dagger? Is he also from earth?' Questions like these ran through my mind, but I had no time to think about things like that.

The battle had started.

The man's attacks were fluid and precise, but not to an extent I couldn't handle. I had gotten used to fighting with a dagger for a while now, after all, so when I combined my coordination skills and my experience with the dagger, I made for a solid opponent even against someone as obviously experienced as the man I was currently fighting.

The fight consisted of us trying to gain control over the other's movements by using our hands to restrict the use of the dagger we both wielded and to land attacks that would cause serious damage when the number of hits piled up.

Overall, it was a combat that made fighting look like an art form.

After a while, though, my mind began to wander, as I had gotten used to all the patterns that the fight followed. I needed an opening good enough to end the fight, which would take some time to get, taking into consideration the prowess of my opponent.

Having gotten used to this style of fighting, I started to inspect my opponent. Upon shifting my attention to the face of my opponent, I discovered a blank gaze that had been aimed at me the whole time.

'He has been looking at me the whole time!?' I exclaimed inwardly.

The man had not taken this fight seriously and instead had made it into an experiment to see how long it would take me to notice his gaze.

I continued to block the attacks I saw with my preferable vision but stopped making counterattacks. Instead, I looked at the man with eyes opened wide in surprise, and the man gave me a look of disappointment.

My jaw tightened, and my brows furrowed as I came up with a strategy and immediately moved into execution.

The next incoming attack was in the form of a slice that was delivered by the dagger in a reverse grip in the man's right hand.

I turned my gaze from my opponent's dark eyes and brought my attention to the incoming attack.

I put my dagger, which was in my left hand, behind my back to get the maximum amount of power for a block.

But when my left hand came back into my opponent's sight, my dagger was gone.

I then grabbed my opponent's right hand, which held the dagger, and after the man noticed the absence of my dagger, he immediately looked for it, and soon enough he found it in the air, traveling towards my right hand, which had been in sight for the whole time.

He reacted quickly by ripping his hand out of my grip and leaning backward to avoid the slash I had made with the dagger in my right hand after a perfect catch.

However, this was all according to plan, and soon enough I was rotating counterclockwise in the air, and then the bottom of my left leg hit the man in the stomach with the combined power of my leg muscles and momentum.

The man flew into a tree and found a black and gold-colored dagger flying straight at his heart.

For a second, it looked like it would hit, but then suddenly the man who seemed dazed just a second ago caught the dagger just before it pierced his clothing, skin, and heart.

"An impressive series of well-thought-out attacks. I have to say, I never expected you to throw your weapon," the man said and threw my dagger, which he had caught, to the side.

"No one does. That's why I do it," I said simply, unsummoning my dagger.

"Oh, I thought you were smart. Why did you cancel the summoning of your weapon? You think you'll be able to survive 30 seconds without it?" the man asked.

"How—"

"—do I know?" the man finished my question. "Well, unlike other ruins, this place is in the real world, not a metaphysical creation made to be by high-level construction sorcery combined with artificial life sorcery, so we maintain knowledge and find out all kinds of secrets about you people who appear here once in a while," the man explained.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"..." I was completely quiet.

'What did he say?' I tried to process all the information that some part of me had seemingly already processed, since I felt like some kind of weight had been lifted off of my mind.

'So, all the ruins are just creations. They're not real. If they're not real, then those people weren't real. But then what is real? No, is this man really real? Is this a test of some kind? Why did he tell me? Is it a battle strategy? But if it were a strategy, that wouldn't explain how he knows. But...' my thoughts were all over the place.

Nothing was certain, and some things just made no sense. What was the point of all this? Why was I here? Were any of the things I saw real? Were any of the things I did real?

"Seems like I dropped quite a bomb on you," the man said, having interpreted my silent reaction. "Well, let's get back to fighting, then." The man stood up.

"Wait, was what you told me everything you know about what happens in The Ruins?" I asked the man.

"Well, that was about everything I have been able to gather from the people who have been here," the man answered.

"What if I told you that there is a lot I can tell you about The Ruins?" I asked the man, trying to pique his interest.

"I don't know," the man said in a bland manner, seeming tired of my questions.

"If I tell you what I know, are you willing to call a truce?" I asked.

"Wow, you tried so hard to get a truce when you could just have simply asked for one," the man said.

"You're willing to call a truce?" I asked with my brows furrowed.

"I'm out here to hunt animals to get something to eat. I don't care about you, people. I only attacked you because dealing with you people always ends in fighting anyway. If you want a truce, I'll give you a truce, but if you try to stab me in the back, I'll decapitate you. Is that clear?"

"Yes. Is the truce now in place?"

"Yeah, the truce is in place. Now get lost," the man said and started walking away and soon after jumped back up into the trees.

'That was easy,' I thought, and I started formulating a plan on what to do next.

It was good that the man hadn't been very interested in the information since I didn't really have any, and my plan was to just make something up until I had a good chance to stab him in the back.

I was just about to climb up a tree to inspect the area closely when I heard an echo of a yell that sounded it came from the man I had fought.

"Hey, here's some advice! Don't sleep!"

'Was that a threat? Is the guy trying to scare me into insomnia? What a weird guy. How did someone like that even get so strong?' I thought.

Even though I didn't like the guy, I had to admit that he had serious skills.

'Whatever,' I thought and started to climb.

Climbing wasn't really hard since I could lift my body weight ridiculously easily and I could dig my dagger into the tree.

After getting up the tree all the way to the top, I looked around and found other trees and a hill in the distance. Nothing more.

The place was really bland.

From then on, I spent my time looking for anything that might clue me in on what I was supposed to do, but then it got dark, and I decided to lay down on a large tree branch.

It had been a long day, and I was in need of rest

'Don't sleep!' I remembered the man's advice and scoffed.

'Did he think I would take him seriously and stay up the whole night, just so that he could laugh at me?' I thought and dismissed his warning.

I put my hands behind my head and closed my eyes.

We all make mistakes.